ARGENTINA PERSPECTIVE

Buenos Aires publishes the day's sharpest critique from the Global South. Clarín reprints a New York Times International Weekly investigation titled 'Trump ignored the war games and warnings about the Strait of Hormuz'. The Argentine paper rolls out the full story in Spanish: in mid-February, just before Trump declared war on Iran, the Revolutionary Guards held a live-fire exercise in their coastal waters — an exercise whose official name said it all: 'Intelligent Control of the Strait of Hormuz'. For reasons 'not yet entirely clear', the warning was largely ignored by the White House. Within days of the war's start, the Iranian military took effective control of the strait. Maritime transport was paralyzed. Energy prices exploded. And Trump found himself strategically cornered. Three months later, writes Clarín, citing the NYT, Iranian control of Hormuz has become 'his most powerful weapon', 'a source of enormous influence in negotiations over the nuclear program'. A president used to bending his opponents to his will has struggled to hide his frustration. In April, in a social media post, Trump demanded in coarse language that the 'crazy bastards' running Iran open the strait, 'or they will live in hell'. The Iranian military mocked the threat — reading it as a sign of impotence. The Argentine perspective is that of a Global South watching American humiliation without triumphalism, but without complacency either.